Thread: Ebook Buying Addicts' Support Thread
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Old 01-08-2015, 02:43 PM   #3228
Rev. Bob
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Join Date: Feb 2013
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Device: Kobo H2O, iPad mini 3, Kindle Touch
Quote:
Originally Posted by DrNefario View Post
I just noticed that, in December, I bought a book I already owned. I think that's a definite sign that my TBR is out of control.
Quote:
Originally Posted by BelleZora View Post
Yes, that is what convinced me that I might have a problem. Also, several times in the last month or so books have gone on sale that I bought a year or two ago at twice the price, but have not yet read. Hoarding is not economically efficient.
December and January are a particularly precarious time for me, due to an annual job duty: updating online bibliographies. We link the book titles to Amazon with an affiliate link, and once a year I have to go through and check all those links to make sure they still work. It can't be automated, for various reasons - not least of which is that where possible, links to outdated/OOP editions need to be updated to point at current editions that can actually be purchased.

As a result, I have to study about 75 book lists, which is bound to inspire some curiosity. Some of them are rather short and/or focused, but others are long and wandering. There are also several repeat entries, where different authors have recommended the same book(s) in multiple contexts, which just makes me that much more intrigued if I'm not familiar with the work. (That's what led me to pick up Fatherland, a murder mystery set in a "Nazis won" 1960s setting where the Holocaust is a German state secret.) Worse yet, since some of them refer to series that are still being updated, I'm responsible for finding and linking to the new volumes. In a few cases, I even get to add whole new entries - such as, notably, including Andy Weir's The Martian to a couple of the SF bibliographies.

Where this ties in to hoarding is that I get to see firsthand how book prices are increasing. I've just updated some Discworld links to find that the current mass-market prices are nearly ten bucks per book, where I remember seeing them at six-something a year or two ago. Thankfully, the digital prices are lower, but I fully expect them to start rising before long.

Yes, certainly there's an advantage in waiting for the hardback-to-mass-market price drop if you're not going to read the book immediately. There's also something to be said for watching for backlist sales triggered by new releases or award nominations. Aside from those cases, though, my experience has been that once a book hits mass-market format, the digital price is about as low as it's going to get. Hold off for too long, and you may end up paying more as digital prices rise to track ever-increasing physical prices.
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